Rumour: Some European Xbox 360 Bundles are Re-Cons.

According to a report doing the rounds, some 'newly bundled' European Xbox 360s are in fact old, more-likely-to-overheat-and-die units.

The report comes from French website Logic-Sunrise. It states that it has found hardware sold as part of the latest European Xbox 360 bundle that harks back to before the days of the Red Ring of Death-combating Falcon motherboard.

How does it know? It points to finding Hitachi 47 DVD drives in the machines and white labels representing the after-sales guarantee, rather than a silver ones.

A forum poster on the site also contributed the claim that on buying a console from the fresh wave of bundles they discovered no HDMI port in their console - also discovered were a pencil and blood marks on the side.

The bundle retails at €199 (£158) and includes two games and two wireless controllers. It's an excellent deal, if the report turns out to be false. We contacted Microsoft for comment this morning but as we go to Web this afternoon have have not received any response.

No pictures or further explanation were provided by Logic-Sunrise, although the site is typically clued up on such things.

With no comment forthcoming from the platform holder, SPOnG is leaving this story open to further denial or, of course, corroboration for now.

In related news, another rumour suggests that production of the first batch of updated Xbox 360s featuring the 'Jasper' motherboard will be completed on August 22nd. The rumour comes via the Seattle Post Intelligencer. No source is named. If true, that date means that we can probably expect them to start hitting shops some time in late August/early September, a time frame that dovetails with earlier reports.

^{Sources: Logic-Sunrise, Seattle Post Intelligencer}